Oshurn. — Conditions Detrimental to Bass. 43 



Dr. Osburn: Undoubtedly he would get the organism earring the 

 parasites if he took them by netting the plankton, and the young fish 

 would then carry probably as many parasites as the fish in the lakes 

 where he got the plankton. 



Mb. Titcomb: I understand that you have been netting the lakes 

 in your state for adults to move to the inland waters? Do I understand 

 from your remarks that the fishing in the lakes has kept up under those 

 conditions? 



Dr. Osburn: As far as I know there has been no depletion of it 

 within five or six years. 



Mr. Titcomb: That would mean that there is plenty of food to en- 

 able the young fish to go on naturally and take the place of those 

 which are removed? 



Dr. Osburn: Certainly, and there are plenty of breeders left. 

 There are enormous hatches right in the waters where many breeders 

 have been removed annually for inland use. 



Mr. Titcomb: And all these parasites and other enemies of the 

 fish which you recounted in your paper are the natural enemies 270u may 

 expect in any water to take care of the surplus reproduction? It is 

 simply the normal condition? 



Dr. Osburn: Certainly, under natural conditions there could not 

 be more than a certain number of bass growing in Lake Erie or any 

 other body of v/ater, limited, as they are, by these natural checks on 

 reproduction and growth. The question is, whether we are maintaining 

 that number. 



Mr. Titcomb: Do you not think that in any lake inhabited by bass 

 if they can be protected through the spring until the spawning season 

 is over, and if limats can be enforced as to the size which may be taken 

 so that they may not be taken until mature, the natural reproduction 

 in such Vv'aters will be all that that lake can possibly take care of? In 

 other words, artificial propagation is not really necessary under those 

 conditions? 



Dr. Osburn: I agree with you. We have made a mistake, I be- 

 lieve, in many parts of the country in trying to increase the number of 

 fish, especially of large-mouth bass, by planting in lakes where they al- 

 ready exist. I know that in some lakes where the bass have been 

 planted from time to time there is a production of young that is far 

 beyond the capacity of the lake to support when they become adults. 



Mr. Titcomb: Have you ever observed whether the female spawn 

 on more than one nest? Mr. Beaman, of Waramang Hatchery, who 

 has closely obsei-ved the bass in those small breeding ponds and has at 

 times tagged many of them, maintains that none of the females expel 

 all their eggs at one time; that after depositing a certain number of 

 eggs they leave the nest, and, a few days later either on the same nest 

 or another one deposit more eggs, and that sometimes this process goes 

 to the third time before all the eggs have been expelled. 



